JACKSON — Western Watersheds Project has filed an appeal of a federal judge’s decision to permit grazing on a contested area of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, pending adjudication of a lawsuit over allowing cattle on that part of the landscape.

The environmental nonprofit has filed to appeal the decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“We thought that the district court judge got it wrong on a number of different counts,” said Erik Molvar, the organization’s executive director.

Those counts included the organization’s likelihood of prevailing on the merits of the case and the harm to the general public and wildlife from allowing cattle to graze in the area, Molvar said.

At issue are four cattle grazing allotments called the Elk Ridge Complex, which make up 30,500 acres near Bondurant and the Gros Ventre Range. The complex had not seen grazing since 2016, when Western Watersheds and other conservation groups bought out the erstwhile permit for grazing sheep. That changed last fall, when the Bridger-Teton permitted grazing in the complex because of damage to 15,000 acres of permitted grazing area in the Upper Green caused by the Dollar Lake Fire.

Conservation groups bought out the permit a decade ago due to concerns about conflicts with grizzly bears and wolves, as well as disease transmission between domestic and bighorn sheep. There were no conflicts between cattle and large carnivores in the complex last year, said Coke Landers, president of the Upper Green River Cattlemen’s Association.

The ongoing suit, filed by Western Watersheds Project against the U.S. Forest Service in August, stemmed from concerns about conflicts with large carnivores, including grizzly bears and wolves, and a review process that relied on an environmental assessment from 1978. The group argued that the Forest Service shirked its responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy Act by not undertaking an updated environmental analysis. The request that was denied and is now under appeal was for a pause on grazing while the legal matter is settled.

Last week, Kelly Rankin, chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming, found that the organization was not likely to prevail on its claims of an inadequate review process, or that grazing this fall would cause irreparable harm.

Cattlemen have plans to put 500 to 550 cow-calf pairs on the complex in a week or two, Landers said.

It’s unclear when the 10th Circuit will make a decision on the case, Molvar said.